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Photo Gallery: Tornadoes

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"Mother Ship" Cloud

Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic

A rare mother ship cloud formation hovers over Childress, Texas. Tornado chasers there spent seven hours and 150 miles (240 kilometers) tracking the supercell thunderstorm that produced this cloud formation. Supercell thunderstorms are known to spawn tornadoes with winds exceeding 200 miles an hour (322 kilometers an hour).

Tornado Chasers

Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic

One tornado chaser with a camera poses while his partner gets into their truck as a tornado approaches in South Dakota. South Dakota had 35 tornadoes in 2009, and is part of "Tornado Alley," an area of the Midwest United States that sees more tornadoes than the rest of the country.

Damaged Mobile Home

Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic

Storm-stained skies hover over the remains of a mobile home demolished by a passing tornado. Tornadoes kill about 60 people in the U.S. every year and cause billions of dollars of property damage.

Tornado Close-Up

Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic

A photographer caught this extreme close-up of a tornado funnel in Manchester, South Dakota. The combination of high winds, flying debris, and loud noise of the tornado would have made this photographer very uncomfortable.

Tornado Conditions

Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic

Heavy clouds hang low over a dilapidated homestead in the Midwest, foretelling a possible tornado. Tornadoes form when the updrafts of air that supply storms with warm, humid air become a vortex, or high-speed whirlwind.

Thrown Vehicle

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

An EF5 tornado threw a van into a hotel in Greensburg, Kansas. An EF5 tornado produces winds greater than 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour), and can pick up and throw vehicles and destroy buildings with ease.

Curved Tornado

A thin funnel cloud touches down in a field in northwest Iowa. Funnel clouds become tornadoes once they touch the ground.

Tornado Cleanup

Photograph by Jim Watson, AFP/Getty Images

A man throws a stuffed animal to his wife as they clean up the debris from their apartment, damaged by a February 2008 tornado over Lafayette, Tennessee. Tornadoes caused $1.8 billion in damage and killed 126 people in the United States in 2008, but only $584 million in damage and 21 deaths in 2009.

Destroyed Homes

Photograph by Steve Pope, Getty Images

Several homes in a row were destroyed by a May 2008 tornado in Parkersburg, Iowa. Tornadoes can completely destroy some buildings while leaving others intact, depending on their construction. Mobile homes are notoriously flimsy in tornadoes, and accounted for more than half the tornado deaths in 2009.

South Dakota Tornado

Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic

A category F3 tornado swirls across a South Dakota prairie. The F (Fujita) scale was used to measure wind speeds based on damage left behind after a tornado, and an F3 tornado had wind speeds between 158 and 206 miles an hour (254 to 332 kilometers an hour). The United States now uses the EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale, which takes more variables into account when assigning wind speeds to a tornado. An EF3 tornado now has wind speeds between 136-165 miles per hour (218-266 kilometers per hour), and the tornado pictured could be an EF3, EF4 or EF5.

Tornado Aftermath

Photograph by Rick Gershon, Getty Images

A woman searches the wreckage of her mother's house in Arkansas after a February 2008 tornado removed the roof. Forecasters in the United States can give an average warning time of 13 minutes before a tornado hits. The best place to be in a tornado is in a basement or interior room of the lowest floor of a sturdy building.

License Plate

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

A Kansas vehicle license plate impaled on a tree after an EF5 tornado struck Greensburg, Kansas. Flying debris is the main cause of injuries and deaths in tornadoes.

Broken Window

Photograph by Rick Gershon, Getty Images

A woman looks through a broken window of a friend's house after a February 2008 tornado over Atkins, Arkansas. Despite a myth that says otherwise, opening windows to equalize the pressure between the inside and outside of a house during a tornado will not prevent them from breaking. Flying debris is the main cause of broken windows in tornadoes.

Safety Glass

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

A broken safety glass window frames a destroyed house after an EF5 tornado struck Greensburg, Kansas.